Industrial controllers and their associated input/output (I/O) devices can be useful to the operation of modern automation systems. These industrial controllers can interact with field devices on the plant floor to control automated processes relating to such objectives as product manufacture, material handling, batch processing, supervisory control, and other such applications. Industrial controllers can store and execute user-defined control programs to effect decision-making in connection with the controlled process. Such programs can include, but are not limited to, ladder logic, sequential function charts, function block diagrams, structured text, or other such programming structures. In general, industrial controllers can read input data from sensors and metering devices that can provide discreet and telemetric data regarding one or more states of the controlled system, and can generate control outputs based on these inputs in accordance with the user-defined program.
In addition to industrial controllers and their associated I/O devices, some industrial automation systems also can include low-level control systems, such as vision systems, barcode marking systems, variable frequency drives, industrial robots, and the like, which can perform local control of portions of the industrial process, or which can have their own localized control systems.
The collection of industrial devices, industrial processes, other industrial assets, and network-related assets that makeup a given industrial automation system is typically in flux. As a result of system expansions, maintenance concerns, and device upgrades, industrial devices or other assets frequently can be added, removed, switched, replaced, reconfigured, or updated; industrial processes frequently can be modified; network-related components (e.g., network-related devices or software) frequently can be added, removed, switched, replaced, reconfigured, or updated; etc. Such modifications to the industrial automation system potentially can have positive or negative impacts on the performance of the industrial automation system.
The above-described deficiencies of today's industrial control and business systems are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with conventional systems and corresponding benefits of the various non-limiting embodiments described herein may become further apparent upon review of the following description.